Sell Your Cloak, Buy A Sword
by Razgriz Ace
Summary: "It's not the first time he's almost lost her, but he's never felt this powerless and at the same time this responsible." Post 6x17 'In the Belly of the Beast' where an important decision must have been made.


Just a little thought on a conversation I think must have happened after 6x17. ABC owns them I just took them out to play.

* * *

She's been back for hours. She's been back for hours and she's safe, if not completely unscathed. She took a pretty good beating, was nearly drowned, and almost executed in the woods. Yet he's the one that feels like he can't catch his breathe, can't get his heart to settle. The last few hours have been spent staring at the ceiling. He has no way to cope for what's happened to his fiance.

She is fast asleep, cradled contently against his chest. Her trauma never usually manifests as nightmares, and he's so incredibly grateful for that, that once sleep finally comes she can actually rest. The things she's seen and been through still haunt her in the daytime on occasion, but her therapy has given her the tools to combat her post-traumatic stress. As a result the attacks are few and far between these days.

He is so insanely proud of her. Of her strength. Stronger than him. So much so.

It's not the first time he's almost lost her, but he's never felt this powerless and at the same time this responsible. The guilt is corrosive and floods him, eating at his heart as it pumps through his chest. It hurts that at the end of the day this is his fault.

He's the one who started digging against her wishes, who put her back on a hunt she had long ago realized was not healthy for her. All of that has lead them here, living in a world where she knows too much but still nearly not enough. A world where she'll never be completely safe.

It hasn't hit him until tonight. It's suddenly too hot there in the confines of their bedroom. His lungs burn, and pulling free from her arms he tears into the kitchen.

He leaves the lights off and thus is blinded by the glow of the fridge when he yanks it open, the glass bottle condiments on the door clinking taunts to him. He closes his eyes and pulls out the water pitcher, taking a few deep gulps directly from the plastic spout. It does nothing to cool him off, to help his breathing, so he resorts to leaning his neck over the sink and pouring the cold water directly on head. The shock of the chill does the trick, and as he gasps the air successfully starts flowing into his lungs again.

He yanks his t-shirt over his head, the soft cotton feeling like hot tin on his skin. Resting his palms flat on the counter, he shakes the water out of his hair and attempts to leach the cold from the marble. His head dips and he just holds himself there, coping with the fact that he probably just had a minor panic attack, might still be having one actually.

The soft pad of her feet on the hardwood floor alerts him to her presence and he's nearly knocked over by a new wave of guilt. The fridge door is still open, casting her in a blue, almost ethereal light. She's wearing the shirt he had on earlier rather than her soft cotton top she had on when they had gotten into bed. It hangs long and loose on her, stopping mid thigh on her mile of legs.

If she's confused to find him drenched and panting in the kitchen she doesn't let on. He slams the refrigerator closed to plunge them into darkness again. He wants to be invisible right now.

She doesn't say anything, but her movements are slow and deliberate as she slips in behind him. Her arms wrap around his chest, her fingers lacing together over his heart, as her cheek presses into his shoulder blade. She's gorgeous, and he loves her, and it's all a little overwhelming.

Leaning into her embrace, he feels her frame easing the thunder in his chest a little more. She just holds him, and though she's warm against his back he also starts to feel decidedly less suffocated.

"Copy cat," she murmurs.

It's an odd thing to say, and it startles him out of his downward spiral.

"Huh?"

"The full on breathe stealing panic attacks are sort of my thing," she says lightly. There's concern at the edge of the words, however. She's trying to dilute some of his shame, to let him know she's been in this dark place too. Essentially she's handling him. He knows she is, and in other circumstances it might irritate him, but as she feathers a kiss to the back of his neck the only thing he feels is grateful.

"Well," he says, grabbing the line she's thrown him, "imitation is the highest form of flattery."

She lets out a breath against his shoulder that might have been a laugh in its previous life and pulls him in a little tighter.

"I'm here," she says just above a whisper after a while. "Right here, Castle."

He loves her for it. For just being there instead of asking him if he's alright or telling him it's all going to be fine. He folds his own hands over hers and the words come falling out of him. "I should have listened to you back then. Respected your wishes and left well enough alone," he says. "I'd take it all back if I could."

"I wouldn't," she says. It's simple. To the point.

He finds his voice again after a long moment. "Kate-"

"No," she cuts him off firm but gentle. "Babe, I'm going to talk for a little bit now and I need you to listen. I need you to really hear what I'm saying and I need you to believe me. Okay?"

"Okay."

"The past day was bad. It was long and hard and bad. We know now that Bracken is more powerful than we thought, and even more dangerous. And yes, you started this ball rolling, but Castle think about it. If you hadn't stuck your nose in this Dick Coonan would still be out there. So would Lockwood and Maddox. Killing. Ruining lives. Stealing futures from other unsuspecting families, other good people who had the audacity to try and do what was right."

A long exhale of relief is his only response.

She leans harder into him as if trying to press her words into his back. "I would not put them back in this world in exchange for the safety of ignorance. And if Roy were still with us he would say the same thing. I have no regrets about how we've handled this. Don't ever for one second think that I do."

His muscles start to loosen and he tips his head back to breathe her in. She smells like cherries and his cologne. His heart swells from it.

The insecurity rears again though and he can't help himself. "Bracken..." he trails off.

"May become president. I'm ready to live with that," she's trying to be tough for him but there's a hint of bitterness in her voice she can't quite hide. She realizes she's failed as well because she sighs heavily and leans her forehead on his back again. "Sorry. I just- I hate him more than I ever thought that I could hate someone."

"I know what this does to you. And as much as anything I regret that. That I caused that."

The air goes still between them, the hum of the refrigerator suddenly sounding like a jet engine in the quiet of the night. He has no idea what to say next, and words seem to get farther and farther from him as the minutes pass on. It has never been an easy task to foresee her reactions, and in this instance he's got nothing.

Finally, he hears her take in a long steadying breath. She turns him in her arms and slides her hands up to link behind his neck. A sorrowful expression falls over her as the words come again.

"Some people are big enough to forgive the Brackens of this world for their sins. I'm not one of them. I wish I was, and maybe someday I can be, but I'm not now. I know what he did and it makes me angry and it make me hate him."

Something prickles behind his eyes and he's ashamed. This isn't him. He's light and funny and fucking charming. He's supposed to be her pillar of strength. He's not the guy who hyperventilates in his kitchen, and cries while having a heart to heart with his fiance. This isn't him, but he can't stop it. "I'm sor-"

She pinches his lips closed, forcing him into a little duck face. Once again she succeeds in lifting the heaviness of the moment. They've adjusted to the dark and he can see her eyes are soft, and seem to have regained a tiny little bit of mirth. He pulls her closer, but makes no further attempt to speak.

"Rick it's still better than before," she says, her forehead pressing into his chin. "You remember what I was like before. I had no answers, no focus for that hate, and I just held it inside. It's hard to let people in. It's even harder to love when you're carrying around all that anger and uncertainty. Will it be hard if Bracken gets elected, if he never gets his comeuppance? Yes."

"Beckett," he breathes, and then he wonders how he made her name sound like an apology.

"Stop," she says. It's comforting and softly scolding at the same time. She tips her head back and leans up to press a kiss into his brow, "You promised to listen." She kisses down to the bridge of his nose before she pecks a quick kiss to his lips and continues, "Yes, it will be terrible. But I mean it. I can live with it." She slides a hand up behind his ear and tips his head so that he's forced to look her in the eye. "You're enough Rick. Right here. This. Our life together is enough. It will always be more than enough. Always."

His mouth finds hers again, longer and slower this time and he can taste the truth in her promise. There's a throaty groan that escapes her and he wraps his arms firmly around her waist, tilting into her and deepening their embrace. Everything else he's feeling fades away, and there's only her. She has just put to bed his worst fear about their relationship and taken his hand before he sank into darkness. Kissing her seems like the only sensible option he has left.

When they pull back for air she tucks her head into his neck and holds tight. The nuzzle of her nose on his collarbone sets him burning in a very different way than he was earlier. They've been talking about the past and it forces him to remember how far away this once seemed. He takes a moment to appreciate it, to marvel at the impossibility that is her in his arms.

They had made love once before she had succum to exhaustion earlier in the night. It was emotional, raw. The upheaval of the day making them desperate and needy to prove, in the most visceral way possible, that she was still there. A tickle at his waist sends desire coiling low in his stomach as she slides her hands down to tease the band of his sweatpants. Apparently, she's ready to prove it again.

He loves that she's in his shirt. He likes the expensive fabric on her lithe body. Likes that she chose it instead of -

The world stills for a moment as the thought passes by his brain.

Son of a bitch.

He's an idiot.

And a jerk.

Because she has always chosen him in the end.

They have a long and complicated history with her mother's case, but despite all the hurt and all the fights, it has always ended with her and him.

Once upon a time, when Dick Coonan was their only lead to finding out who put the hit on Johanna, Kate hadn't hesitated to put the assassin down when he threatened Castle's life. Then there was Maddox. The sniper had reared his head after Kate's shooting and things had gone briefly to hell, but she had been on Castle's doorstep mere hours later with an apology and a promise.

Then she let the case lie. Stopped digging because it was what he wanted and because she wanted to protect him. Even tonight, after everything she had been through, she had taken Castle's hand and gone to bed with him, despite having just seen Bracken announce his Presidential campaign. She was offering to stand down as the man who had her mother killed rose to the highest government office.

Selfish. He's been so unbelievably selfish. She's chosen them because he's made her choose. A life with him or the justice she has dedicated her entire adult life to finding. He's been too afraid of losing her to see what their life together is costing her. She's willing to pay that price, and he wants so badly to let her, to forget about the senator and just settle in together. But he can't anymore. Not after today.

The thought pulls together everything that has fragmented within him. It calms him, fills the wound in his chest with determination, and makes everything profoundly, excruciatingly clear.

"I don't want you to have to choose," he says into her hair. It may be the toughest sentence he's ever had to say.

She pulls out of his arms to look at him, and he can just make out the lines of confusion on her face. "Choose what?"

He dips his head down and out of her embrace, but catches her hand to lace their fingers together. He leads her over to the sofa, where the white ambient glow of streetlights filtering through the windows gives them a little more visibility of one another. It would be easier to turn on a light, but the pure privacy of this moment keeps him from the lamp.

"I've been wrong about this and I'm sorry."

"Castle, for the love of God stop apolog-"

He covers her mouth with his to cut her off. It's a hard and full kiss. She's a little dazed and a tiny-bit breathless when he pulls back. "I've been thinking as your lover and not your partner on this," he says quickly, before she finds air again. "We can't let Bracken hang over you, over us, anymore."

"What are you saying?"

"Beckett, what do you want? And don't say me. You have me. You will always have me. Nothing, and I mean it, absolutely nothing you say next will change that. I promise you."

Her eyes are wide and equal parts hopeful and disbelieving. She exhales his surname. A plea or a warning he's not sure.

"What do you want?" he pushes.

She sighs and her eyes drop away from his, but there's no shame or hesitance in her next words. "I want him behind bars. I want him to watch as I knock over his house of cards. I want to look him in the eye as I slap the cuffs on him and see the fear there. I want him to spend the rest of his life staring at cinder-block walls in complete disbelief that I won, that my mom won..." she trails off.

He taps a knuckle under her chin so she's looking at him, then makes the leap. "Then let's get the bastard."

Her hands brush against his cheeks, framing his face, pushing the damp fringe of his hair back and he can feel the tension in her fingers, as if he transferred it to her somehow. "It's dangerous," she says softly, as if he didn't know, as if he doesn't kiss the constant reminder printed on her heart every night.

He knows it's her greatest fear. Losing another loved one to that man. It scares her more than dying, which in turn scares him more than, well anything. Regardless it was time to stop hiding. Time to go on the offensive.

"We'll do it together," he says, "But there has to be rules. Boundaries to stay safe."

Her lip finds its way between her teeth and the smile that grows is wry. "You mean rules to keep me in check?"

"No!" he insists, but melts under her skeptical gaze. "Maybe….Yes."

She chuckles. Just like that he feels like himself again. Snapped back into place by the insanely patient and understanding goddess sitting with him.

They can always find the lighter side, and that more than anything is what makes them incredible.

"I'm not that woman anymore," she soothes, "It's easy to have tunnel vision when there is no bigger picture, nothing to lose. Old Beckett was blind to what she had, what could be lost. I'm not."

"I know you're not."

"Good. Then we'll both set some rules. You'll keep me from falling down the rabbit hole. We'll be insanely careful and we'll nail that prick to a wall."

"You're so hot when you talk justice."

She laughs again and leans in. "Thank you," she says against his lips, and he knows she's not talking about his last compliment.

"It's not wholly altruistic," he confesses. "It's the only way to get what we both want." Justice for her. Her safety and happiness for him.

"It'll be win-win if we don't both end up dead."

He can't help the little choking noise he makes. "Beckett!"

"Too soon?"

There's a new bruise rising on her jawline, bright red on it's way to purple and he lightly traces his knuckle along it. "Maybe a little."

"Looks like we've caught each other's coping mechanisms," she quips. Her eyes are serious, though, and he knows she feels it. The shifting of the Earth. The seemingly cosmic severity of the decision they've just made.

"His and hers panic attacks and ill-timed humor. We're quite a pair aren't we?"

"At least we haven't started dressing alike."

"Well at least there's that," he deadpans.

Their bodies sag into each other just then. On top of the trauma of almost losing her he's just run the entire emotional spectrum in a quarter of an hour. She's still recovering from the botched undercover operation. They're both rightfully exhausted.

"Let's go back to bed," she suggests. Soft fingers slide down his arm to intertwine with his, and she begins leading him back to their bedroom.

He nods, yawns loudly, and shuffles in time with her. "We can be dragon slayers tomorrow."

"Love you."

"I love you too."

He hopes it's enough.

* * *

That's it. Hope you fine people enjoyed it. :) I'm hoping to have updates to my other fics soon. I promise they won't be left unfinished.


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